Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 633

Chapter 633

Nicholas’ POV

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The silence after what I said weighed more than any of the numbers he had laid out in front of me. In my head, I could still hear every word he’d used. Scale. Volume. Structure. He’d listed them like he was breaking down a simple equation.

For me, it wasn’t simple. It was my entire life lined up in rows of vines.

He frowned slightly.

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what it sounds like.”

He took a slow breath and rested his elbows on the desk.

“Nick, you’re not a failure,” he said firmly. “You’re just not a businessman. You’re a man who leads with

his heart.”

I let out a humorless laugh.

“And I can’t be both?”

“You can,” he admitted. “But only if you know how to separate the two. And you don’t.”

He made a small gesture in the air, like he was drawing a line.

“You make decisions with your heart and expect the business to adjust. Gwen does that too, more than I’d like, actually.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “The difference is she’s had years of training dealing

with the fallout afterward.”

I looked down at my hands, open over my knees.

“So that’s it?” I asked quietly. “At best, I save the estate, get out of debt, improve the numbers a little…. and spend my life dragging myself from one crisis to the next?”

I swallowed.

“You could build a stable life. And that’s not a bad thing…”

“But it’s not Gwen Kensington standard.”

A faint smile touched his mouth.

“No, it’s not,” he agreed, without cruelty. “And that’s not a problem by itself. The question is: do you want a stable life, or do you want to build something that can withstand the kind of storms she’s used to facing?”

I lifted my gaze.

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“So what do I do?”

He didn’t answer right away. He spun the pen between his fingers, thinking.

You accept that you’re not going to evolve on your own without turning Valemont into a real business,” he said at last. “With governance. With planning. With outside voices weighing in. Investors. Partners.”

The word made my body go rigid.

“I’m not selling the estate,” I shot back automatically. “Not even a piece of it.”

“It’s not about selling,” he replied calmly. “It’s about accepting influence. Nick, you want to own everything. Every vine, every bolt. But that comes with a cost. And the cost is staying small.”

I didn’t say anything.

He went on.

“What I’m proposing isn’t turning Valemont into Kensington. That would be a disaster. They’re different things. He leaned forward slightly. “What I see is something else. An associated line. Not untouchable luxury wine, but a wine with the same obsession for quality, positioned for a slightly different audience. More accessible pricing, without carrying our main name, but backed by our structure.”

I tried to keep up.

“You want to… buy the brand?” I asked.

“No,” he said immediately. “I want to build a brand architecture where Valemont stays Valemont. With your face on the label, if that’s what you want. But underneath, in smaller letters, it says ‘a Kensington Group company.”

He shrugged lightly.

In practical terms: we help with investment, distribution, oenology, strategy. In return, you accept that some decisions stop being yours alone. Not all of them. The strategic ones. The ones that determine whether the business lives or dies.”

The room suddenly felt smaller.

I had always criticized people like that. Big groups swallowing smaller estates and changing everything

“And what guarantees you won’t destroy what the estate is?” I asked, my voice rougher than I meant it

to be

He held my gaze.

“Gwen,” he said simply. “As long as her name is tied to anything that involves you, do you really think she’d let us turn your home into a theme park?”

The image of her in my kitchen flashed through my mind Cutting bread unevenly, pretending that any of it was normal.

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“Even so…” I started.

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“Even so, it’s a risk,” he admitted. “And I’m not going to lie to you. The moment you join a group, you stop making every decision on your own. On the other hand, you also stop carrying every failure on your own.”

I leaned back in the chair and let out a slow breath.

“You say that like it’s easy,” I muttered.

“It’s not,” he replied. “If it were, we’d buy half of Castoria in three years. The point is, you asked me for

help so you wouldn’t feel like a burden in my sister’s life.”

He paused.

“This is the most help I can offer you without lying.”

We sat in silence for a few seconds.

Outside, beyond the glass wall, Florentia moved on. Cars. People. Rooftops. From up there, everything looked organized, clean, predictable. Nothing like a vineyard in a year with too much rain.

“And if I say no?” I asked.

“We’re still family,” he answered without hesitation. “You’re still the man she chose. I’ll still come to the estate, drink your wine, and give you irritating opinions no one asked for.” A faint smile curved his mouth. “You’ll just probably keep living on a tightrope between one crisis and the next. Not because you’re bad at what you do. Because the world works that way.”

I looked down at my hands, then back at him.

“And if I say… maybe?”

He let out a quiet laugh.

“Then that’s the most honest answer I’ve heard all day.”

I laughed too, but it came out a little unsteady.

He set the pen down on the desk.

“Don’t decide right now,” he said. “Go home. Look at your land. Think about what you want for Bella, for your mother. Then call me. I’m going to want to see your numbers either way. Even if it’s just to tell you, with certainty, whether you actually need me.

I nodded.

But inside, I wasn’t certain of anything

I didn’t know if I was ready to let another last name into my life like that. Or if the estate would survive much longer if I didn’t.

All I knew was that, for the first time, the future didn’t feel like a distant threat.

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It felt like a decision.

And whether I liked it or not, it was going to be mine.

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Chapter 14

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